Skate 4 is an E3 2017 no-show, and people are pissed

"Do not trust to hope. It has forsaken these lands." So said Eomer in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, but he may as well have been talking to fans of EA's Skate series going into E3 2017. The rumor mill has a tendency to let things spin out of control like a flubbed 360 flip, and wishes that we might finally see a Skate 4 have been dashed now that the EA Play press conference has come and gone.

All those hopes and dreams for Skate 4 can be traced back to a (what we now know to be ill-advised) tweet made earlier this year by Daniel Lingen, a senior manager for community engagement at EA. Earlier this year, he tweeted out a simple, cryptic message that could only be interpreted as a sign of the Skate series continuing with a new sequel. EA CEO Andrew Wilson later shut down the idea by stating that EA isn't currently working on a new Skate, but the rumor was already out in the world and ingrained in the hearts of the hopeful.

Even if you've never played Skate, you're probably familiar with how these open-world skateboarding games have generated some of the most amazing, side-splitting glitches in all of gaming history. And when you're not laughing to the point of tears at these skater's bodies defying all laws of physics and human anatomy, the Skate games offer a solid evolution of classic Tony Hawk's Pro Skater gameplay, where you bust out tricks by flicking the right thumbstick instead of tapping buttons, in an open world that lets you take on missions (or even build new structures to create complex trick lines) as you see fit. The hope was that those unannounced titles scheduled for the EA Play presser would include Skate 4; turns out, they were Anthem and A Way Out instead.

Plenty of people took to Twitter to express their frustration with EA seemingly ignoring this franchise with diehard fans:

AAA skateboarding games have been MIA since the abysmal Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5, and while OlliOlli 2 is an excellent indie alternative, it seems nothing can fill the Skate 4-shaped hole in fans' hearts. Some of whom have some rather... unrealistic ideas about the powers of Skate 4.

After Skate 4 was nowhere to be found as the press conference wrapped up, those desperate for something - anything - to believe in drowned their sorrows in what they wished were Skate 4 screens. In case you're wondering, those are Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 and Razor Freestyle Scooter, though with just how obsessed EA is with Star Wars Battlefront 2, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Darth Maul could have a place in Skate 4.